15 Best Mozilla Firefox Skins To Customize Your Browser

Firefox has long been the head of the Mozilla browser family and it remains the prime rival for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Up until now the release of Google’s Chrome was a rather insignificant episode in the browser war.

What makes Firefox so popular? Back in the days it hit a nerve with geeks by letting them create, add and share their own content: extensions and themes. It was the start of Web 2.0 and the fascination soon caught on with the general crowd.

If you’re using Firefox, I hope you can appreciate the freedom it provides. One is that you can express your style with custom Mozilla Firefox skins. Here are 15 of the best. Dig in!

Black Steel

(3.0 – 3.6a1pre)

A dark metal theme with sharp contrasts. It will definitely draw attention.

Silvermel

(1.5 – 3.6a1pre)

Silvermel is silver, shiny and quite unobtrusive. The transparent effect for tabs is awesome.

Daum Blue

(3.0 – 3.5.*)

This Mozilla Firefox skin is not revolutionary, but it has a fresh look with nicely designed tabs. If you keep on reading you’ll see that I’m a little obsessed with pretty tabs.

Anthem

(3.0 – 3.5.*)

Anthem is a very stylish template in dark and light grey. I love the look of the tabs. The icons are exceptional and they’re smaller than with most themes, which saves space and gives more room for browsing. This one is my new personal favorite.

Scribblies Plain

(3.5.*)

A playful theme for your kids or the kid in you. Gotta love the icons in the navigation toolbar. Also the tabs are quite original. Definitely something different!

iFox Graphite

(3.0b5 – 3.5.*)

This is the theme I’ve been using for years. It’s clean and simple and also available in three more flavors: pure, metal and smooth.

Simple Green

(3.5b4 – 3.5.*)

Simple Green reminds me of Netscape. If you still mourn the end of IE’s first serious rival, express your grief with this theme.

Stratini Padded

(3.0 – 3.5.*)

This theme made the list because it has a refreshing set of icons and very lovely shaped tabs and boxes. I’m still a huge fan of rounded edges.

Vista on XP

(3.5.*)

If you’re using a Vista transformation pack on XP, you can’t do without a Vista Firefox theme. So this one’s for you!

NASA Night Launch

(3.0 – 3.5.*)

One of the few dark Mozilla Firefox skins that are actually stylish. NASA Night Launch is very cool. Pretty tabs, well-designed icons and a very clean, dark look.

Utopia FFSE White

(3.0 – 3.5.*)

I love the fox in this theme. But also the buttons and tabs are pretty cool. If the animal is a little too much for you, there is one without it: Utopia White.

yogurttree

(3.0 – 3.6a1pre)

Here’s a very soft and girly skin with lovely pastel colors and roundish icons. Yes, we do have female readers! Girls, where are you?

XboxFox

(3.0b1 – 3.5.*)

Girls play Xbox, too! Maybe that’s why this theme isn’t exactly virile. Or is this just a very modern design?

OldFactory Black

(3.0 – 3.5.*)

Here’s one for the guys. Chrome, stone, levers and rounded edges so that you don’t hurt yourselves. I love the levers. Makes me think of Myst. And get this: they’re actually animated!!! How cool is that?

Chromifox Extreme

(3.1b1 – 3.6a1pre)

Finally, here’s a theme that will give Firefox a Chrome-like look, including tabs on top.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

Google Chrome OS & What It Means For Future of Computing

Today (8th august ‘09) Google went wild and announced its plans to create the Chrome operating system, which it says will be designed to run on notebooks. But it’s really an attempt to keep Google relevant as an advertising powerhouse as consumers begin spending more time playing with web-connected apps than the web itself. It’s the search giant’s reaction to a wholesale change in computing driven by ubiquitous wireless access and mobility. The Chrome OS is another step in allowing Google to create what we’ve called the OS for advertising — an ad platform that extends across all devices and all screens.

The Features:

• Chrome OS will run on both ARM and x86-based chips and is designed for notebooks.
• The architecture is Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.
• Apps developed for Chrome OS will run on Google Chrome OS, and on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux.
• Designed to boot and get folks on the web in seconds.
• Designed so viruses and malware aren’t an issue.
• It’s not going to be out until the second half of 2010 on consumer notebooks.

What It Means:

• Google sees a browser-like experience being key to notebooks and believes that rather than just surf the web, consumers want to play and use the apps.
• Microsoft, which has not ported its Windows 7 to ARM-based chips that will be designed into the future version of notebooks, and which has priced Windows 7 for Intel-based notebooks fairly high, will be scrambling if Chrome OS succeeds.
• The fact that apps designed for Chrome OS will work anywhere should attract developers to the platform, and as we know, developers are the new kingmakers in today’s app-focused world.
• Building a special-purpose, lightweight browser might address some of the difficulties that developers were having porting Android to notebooks, such as issues porting to a keyboard-based user interface rather than touch screens and trackballs.
• This all follows in line with Google’s love of everything in the browser, such as its embrace of HTML5 that makes it easy to bring a desktop experience seamlessly to the browser.
• Chipmakers betting on ARM-based notebooks such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments will win if the user experience is robust enough to wean people from their familiarity with Windows.

Opera Unite – File Sharing, Messaging, Note Taking & more Right in your Browser

Unite is a ‘component’ that was added to a version of Opera 10 Beta. It’s an incredibly small server integrated into the Opera browser. This platform enables you to run various plug-ins or mini applications that accomplish different tasks such as file sharing, note sharing, photo sharing, secure notes and instant messaging.

Unite eliminates the need for a third party server that would normally proxy or relay the content, such as Flickr, Twitter or Yahoo Messenger. It’s essentially like setting up a web server on your own computer, without the hassle of manually installing various software, configuring them and getting a DNS(Domain Name System) account. It also makes the installation of new functionality a “point and click” process.

I’m sure we’ll have a review of Opera 10 shortly, but let’s focus on Unite for the moment. Here are the steps you need to take in order to use the various Unite services.

1. Click on the propeller icon on the left sidebar.
2. Click on the icon labeled ‘Home’ and then on ‘Start’. A wizard will appear. Click next.
3. Create an Opera account for free or sign up for a new one. It is extremely simple and fast, just choose an username, a password and enter an email address.
4. Choose a name that would describe the computer. If you install Unite on more than one computer, this will enable you to differentiate between them and enable sharing. A descriptive name could also help a friend who wishes you to send photos, for example – naming one “The home PC” and another “The office laptop” can easily distinguish the two. Using UPnP port forwarding poses some security issues, but it allows access to your files from outside the local network (Internet) without using Opera’s proxy server which provides a speed boost. If you want a direct connection without UPnP, add port (8840) in your router’s ‘Port Forwarding’ list.
5. Click Finish to save the settings and close the wizard.

You will now be able to start any of the services listed in the left sidebar, such as file sharing. They are designed to be extremely easy to use. For example, to enable File Sharing, click on the File Sharing icon and then on Start. To protect your privacy, it will ask you to select the folder that you want to share.

After you click the OK button, a web page will open that will showcase the content you selected in the previous step. On the left, you’ll see your files, on the right the instructions for sharing with your friends and the permissions. All your friend has to do to access the files is to paste the link given in the right sidebar. A regular webpage will appear in your friend’s browser along with download links for all the files.

All the files are hosted on your computer and are never transferred to Opera’s servers. For the duration you wish to allow users to connect to your Unite services, you need to have the computer and browser open. Be aware that transferring unencrypted sensitive information is not recommended, as all transfers are done using HTTP. The Photo, Media and File Sharing use the same underlying technology while adding specific controls for each media type like a Flash music player and photo thumbnails.

This technology is not limited to the 5 bundled applications: Fridge (secure notes), Lounge (instant messaging), Photo and File Sharing, Media Player. It’s open to developers and uses well-known open standards such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Below is a screenshot of the Lounge, a quasi-instant messaging application. To invite other people, the host needs to send a link to the other participants. They can use any modern web browser to join the discussion.  It is similar in functionality to a private IRC channel.

The Fridge application lets you leave notes for friends or yourself, similar to the ‘Wall’ on Facebook or direct messaging in Twitter.

You can write applications — in the form of Opera Unite Services — that use this server to serve content to other Web users. Why is this exciting? Well, it allows you to interact with contacts, sharing data and services without the need for any third-party Web sites/applications to be involved at all. –Opera Developer Blog

Opera lets the geeks get a taste of the next paradigm shift in web browsing, a great way to win hearts, minds and developers. I’ve radically changed my tune about Opera after hearing from tens of fans and Thomas Ford, Communications Manager.

So grab a copy of opera from here

Opera 10

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Release

There it is… Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Release has just been made available to the public for download and upgrading. This release is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which was under rigorous development for the past year. On top of that, there has been a couple of changes over the previous version. Check out some of the features below:

•     Available in more than 70 languages.
•     Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
•     Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
•     The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
•     Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
•     Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
•     Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.

All the beta versions in various localized languages are available from the link below. Try them out today!

Download File
Mozilla Firefox 3.5

Five Best Web Browsers

There are millions of pages of information and entertainment available online. In order to maximize your Internet experience, you need to have a web browser that has the features and technologies that are appropriate for your operating system and your preferences. Below is information on FIVE of the most popular browsers available, along with a summary of features to help you decide which is best for you.

Chrome

Some browsers have roots going back to the early 1990s—Chrome, on the other hand, is the new kid on the block. Although Chrome has a distant relationship to conqueror and is a cousin to the Safari web browser—both share the speedy WebKit rendering engine—Google’s browser is less than a year old. Despite its youth, it’s already garnered praise for its minimalist interface and snappy page rendering. Chrome also handles site errors and quirks well, and each individual tab is a unique process, so a crash or lag in one shouldn’t pull down or crash the others. In general, though, Chrome has caught attention for running a performance-focused JavaScript engine in a lightweight GUI. Also worth noting, Chrome has been holding its own in the recent Pwn2Own security challenge, with the distinction of being the only browser left standing after the first day of security exploits and attacks. The chrome also contains a Task Mangaer, so a faulty page willl not let your other pages crash, also the Task Manager shows the current working plug-ins.

Opera

Windows/Mac/Linux: Opera is a rock-solid browser with roots stretching back to 1994. Many of the features baked right into Opera are either not implemented in other browsers, or require multiple extensions at the cost of system resources—navigation by mouse gestures is one of the flashier examples. Despite being feature-packed, Opera has a fairly small market share, due largely in part to being trialware up until 2000 and advertisement-supported until 2005—many people were turned off by the expense, if not the ads. Still, Opera proponents have long claimed that Opera beats Internet Explorer and Firefox when it comes to speedy rendering. Another selling point for Opera is the quality of the built-in tools. For many users, the built-in RSS reader, email client, and BitTorrent client do their jobs admirably, cutting down on the number applications they need running at once. Opera is extensible, but the pool of available extensions is radically smaller than that available for Firefox.

Firefox

Firefox is the grandchild of the venerable Mosaic browser and free-roaming son of Netscape. Although Firefox has a myriad of user-friendly, forward-thinking features, a decently secure framework, and an open-source ideology, its most prominent is extensibility. When convincing a Firefox user to abandon Firefox for anything else, even temporarily, you won’t have to fight them over giving up the AwesomeBar or about:config tweaks—you’ll hear a common, understandable refrain: “What about my extensions?” The repository of extensions maintained by Mozilla currently has over 6,000 entries, covering everything from blocking advertisements, to managing your clipboard, to allowing you to further customize your browsing experience with scripts a la Greasemonkey (here’s 10 of our must-have picks). Combine the passion people have for extensions and the ability to sync those extensions across multiple computers and portable installations, and you’ve got a force to be contended with.The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer still commands a healthy chunk of the browser market, mostly because it ships with the most popular operating system on Earth and fits, if not exactly elegantly, into corporate computer plans. While many or most IE users stick with it for lack of wanting to try something else, Lifehacker readers definitely don’t fall into that crowd—the majority of readers who voted in favor of Internet Explorer are sporting Internet Explorer 8. By contrast, nearly 20 percent of those surfing the web right now are using Internet Explorer 6, which had its initial release in 2001. Version 8 could mark a resurgence for the brand, though. It’s the first version of Internet Explorer to have a strong focus on web standards compliance, as well as increasing rendering speed. And like Chrome, Internet Explorer 8 maintains a separate process for each tab to increase stability and security. Internet Explorer 8 has also beefed up its security measures from previous versions, including active filtering against malicious cross-site scripting and ActiveX isolation from the core of the browser.

Safari

Safari is Apple’s contribution to the web browsing world, built originally to fit snugly inside OS X. Like Chrome, Safari runs the speedy WebKit rendering engine for snappy page loads. In addition to its WebKit core, Safari also has the Nitro JavaScript engine, which lays claim to radically faster JavaScript execution than Internet Explorer and Firefox (in its own testing reports, anyways). Safari sports Apple’s Cover Flow browser for perusing your history and bookmarks and an eye-catching display of the top 24 sites you’ve visited as the default page when Safari is loaded.

You’ve seen the top contenders. Now it’s time to log your vote for the best browser: